


toward paradise falling

by 100demons



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 18:42:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8501044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/100demons/pseuds/100demons
Summary: Yuri’s heart still forgets how to beat every time Victor smiles at him or skates with him or touches him or even exists around him, because Victor Nikiforov is real. He’s not a poster on his bedroom wall or an article that Yuri has bookmarked on his computer; he’s not a pixelated blur of color on the TV or a distant figure on the skating rink in Sochi. He’s five feet eleven inches of affectionate touches and lean muscle, messy silver hair and horrible morning breath, glittering smiles and sweat drenching the back of his black practice shirt after a long day on the rink.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place during the three month gap between Episode 4 (May) and Episode 5 (September).

Did I actually reach out my arms  
toward it, toward paradise falling, like  
the fading of the dearest, wildest hope —  
the dark heart of the story that is all  
the reason for its telling?

 _The Chance to Love Everything_  
Mary Oliver

* * *

 

JUNE

 

Hasetsu in the summer is sleepy and quiet, as if the whole town is blanketed in a somnolent haze. Grandfathers sit in shaded courtyards, nodding off over half-lit cigarettes and bottles of beer, families troop over to the seashore to brave the chilly waters, and the massive Panasonic fan returns to its rightful place in the corner of the inn’s common room, the streamers fluttering gently as it turns its impassive face around the room.

Yuri lies on the floor at the perfect angle to catch the fan’s manufactured breeze, adjusting the bag of ice sitting on his right shoulder every so often when it threatens to slide off. In the background there’s a Hawks game on low volume, interspersed with the soft grumblings of a customer working his way through a scorecard. 

Eyes closed, Yuri lets himself drift in and out of consciousness, his thoughts skittering from the baseball game, to the steady mechanical whirring of the fan, and coming back to the deep bruising ache in his body, sore from too many quads and too many falls. 

Footsteps scuff across the tatami mats, heading straight for his spot. 

“Five more minutes, Mari,” Yuri mutters, refusing to budge. “I’ll help out with the laundry, I promise…” 

The footsteps stop and there’s a sound of something dropping onto the tatami mats lining the floor. 

Yuri stifles a sigh and cracks an eye open. “Mari, I said I--” There’s no one standing above him. 

He blinks. Something hot and warm tickles at the soft skin of Yuri’s neck. And really, when he turns his head to the side, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to see a fuzzy outline of Victor beaming back at him sloppily, propped up on one long arm while lounging casually on the ground. 

But it _is_ a surprise. Yuri’s heart still forgets how to beat every time Victor smiles at him or skates with him or touches him or even _exists_ around him, because Victor Nikiforov is real. He’s not a poster on his bedroom wall or an article that Yuri has bookmarked on his computer; he’s not a pixelated blur of color on the TV or a distant figure on the skating rink in Sochi. He’s five feet eleven inches of affectionate touches and lean muscle, messy silver hair and horrible morning breath, glittering smiles and sweat drenching the back of his black practice shirt after a long day on the rink. 

“Oh,” Yuri says, stupidly. “Hello.” 

“Tired?” Victor tilts his head, like a curious bird. 

Yuri rolls to his side, remembering too late that it’s his bruised shoulder until the ice bag crunches underneath him and pain radiates down his back. “Ow,” he hisses. He tries to roll onto his back again but everything hurts even _more_ , crap-- 

Long fingers grab firmly at his sides and drag him up into a sitting position; even without his glasses, Yuri can see the long tendons jumping out in Victor’s pale arms as he hauls Yuri up, careful and gentle. 

Green eyes peer straight into his own. “Hmm,” Victor says. 

Yuri feels the first stirrings of a heavy blush start to heat up his cheeks as he stares back blearily. 

“Alright,” Victor says, decisive, and he presses something cold into Yuri’s hands. Yuri looks down blankly. Oh, his glasses. He unfolds them and slides them onto his face, and Victor’s face focuses into clear clarity. This close, Yuri can see a narrow patch of gray stubble on Victor’s sharp jaw. He always misses shaving that spot, Yuri thinks. 

“I think we need to cut back on the quads for the next few weeks,” Victor says and he leans back into a crouch, running a hand through his hair. “You’ve been favoring that shoulder for the past couple of days and it won’t do you any good to aggravate it into an injury.” 

“What--! I don’t have time for that,” Yuri protests reflexively, his brain snapping back to the conversation at hand. “I only have three months to work on my program until the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu competition in September, and of course Cup of China’s only a couple weeks after that.” His mind flickers back to a conversation with Pichit-kun, who began training for the GP circuit with Celestino since before the finals of last _year_. Yuri only started working with Victor in April, just two months ago. 

Yuri can feel his throat closing up, the pain in his shoulder now a ticking timebomb threatening to blow up the carefully engineered schedule Minako-sensei and Victor color-coded onto an Excel spreadsheet-- 

Victor’s hand reaches out to cup Yuri’s face, the callouses on his fingertips scraping pleasantly against Yuri’s jaw. “Hey, I need you to focus on me.” 

Yuri’s heart forgets to beat again, but it’s a comforting sort of tension, familiar in its steady constancy. It drags him out of the swirling black hole of anxiety building up in the back of his head, just enough for Yuri to realize that he’s breathing in short, tight gasps. 

“You’re thinking that you won’t make it to the final and all your hard work is going to be useless and you won’t be able to finish your season like you’d hoped.” It’s not a question. 

“Well,” Victor smiles at him, his thumb lightly gliding over the soft curve of Yuri’s mouth. “That might have been true last year, but you’ve got me now. That’s not going to happen. We’re going to eat many bowls of katsudon together this year, Yuri. It’s okay to let your body rest a little, so no jumps for at least the next week.”

There’s something infectious about Victor’s easy confidence; maybe it comes with being a five time World Champion and five time Grand Prix gold medalist. Innate genius, or talent, or just a strange quirk of personality. Maybe it’s none of the above and all of the above at once.

Maybe it’s just Victor and the steady, almost terrifying way he looks _at_ Yuri, like he knows that Yuri’s skating is worth something. Everything. 

“Alright,” Yuri says, a little stiffly, and he ducks his head, breaking the hold Victor has on him. “I understand.” 

The black hole in his head shrinks a little, the weight eases up a touch on his chest, and even the pain in his shoulder seems a little more manageable now. It’s only June now. He has three more long months to go. He can do this. And maybe, just on his own, if he slides a couple more jumps in during his solo practice and they just _happen_ to be quads… 

“And don’t even think about doing anything on your own,” Victor says pleasantly. “I’m going to let Yuuko know so she can keep an eye on you at the rink.” 

Yuri starts a little, trying to arrange his face into a semblance of innocence. “What? No? Of course not! No jumps! No quads! I understand!” 

Victor laughs, throwing his head back and exposing the long white line of his throat. “You’re so adorable when you try to lie,” he says, his voice slow and honey warm. 

“Um,” Yuri flounders. 

Just then Mari pokes her head out of the kitchen. “Yuri! I thought I told you Mom needs help with--” 

“Laundry!” Yuri shouts and leaps up to his feet. “Yes, of course! I can help!” 

Mari gives him a dry look, raising one eyebrow. “You’re never this enthusiastic about helping out with the chores.” 

“I’ll be right there,” Yuri continues in a slightly too loud voice, ignoring Mari’s comment, and heads over to the stairs. “I--I’ll see you later Victor.” 

Victor waves back at him languidly and Yuri tries not to flush as he presses a hand against his chin, where Victor’s hand rested just moment ago. It feels strangely cold and bereft of warmth, even in this summer heat.

 

* * *

 

In the morning, Yuri gets up at six, early enough that the dew still glimmers on the grass and along the railings of the bridge, and heads out for a quick run. By the time he gets back, Victor is sitting at the table in pajamas and a toothbrush sticking out of his mouth, unsteadily brushing his teeth and watching the news with Yuri’s Dad at the same time. Sometimes, Yuri’s Dad makes an idle comment in Japanese and Victor nods along in understanding, as if the two are communicating on some other wavelength entirely bypassing human language. 

Breakfast is usually quiet, conversation mostly reduced to requests to pass this item or another across the table, with the announcer discussing weather in the background. Then it’s a quick run to the rink (Victor cycling ahead on Yuri’s old bike) for warmups and a few hours of ice time, a break for lunch that Yuri’s Mom packed, followed by an hour or so of more ice time. In the afternoons, Yuri heads to the gym for off-ice conditioning, finishes the day off with a run, then comes home for dinner and a shower. 

Victor’s long arms and height make him handy around the inn and he’s managed to cobble together enough Japanese and English to communicate with the rest of Yuri’s family, with generous helpings of pointing and Google translate. Sometimes, when Yuri comes back from the gym or his afternoon run, he finds Victor helpfully changing a light for Yuri’s Mom or shelling peas with Mari in front of the TV as they watch Korean dramas, utterly focused on the nonsensical plotlines. 

“So of course, the poor girl is diagnosed with cancer for a _second_ time, even after her unrequited love donates his own corneas to save her eyes, and she dies in the arms of the man she loves while they watch the sunset for one final time,” Victor rattles off during dinner one night with Makkachin in his lap, feeding the dog scraps of salmon. Mari nods sagely across the table, catching the English words _cancer_ and _love_ and _dies_ from across the table. 

“We binge watched all of Stairway to Heaven,” Mari explains to Yuri, who’s trying his best not to fall asleep into his plain bowl of chicken breast, rice, and kale. “I figured out how to make the subtitles switch from Japanese to English.” 

Yuri pushes his glasses up his nose, squinting as he tries to remember. “I thought that drama was about a girl who got hit by a car and suffered from amnesia.” 

“Same girl, she gets cancer later too,” Mari says, with a long-suffering air. “Keep up, Yuri.” 

Victor laughs, catching the look on Yuri’s face. “We should watch one together too! I found this one online, it’s a hundred episodes about a girl from the countryside who heads to Seoul…” 

After dinner, Yuri heads to the shower and then a long, _long_ soak in the hot springs, nearly falling asleep once or twice in the soothing heat. 

“Hey.” There’s a ghostly sort of touch on Yuri’s face, fingers trailing down his cheeks, but not quite grazing skin. Yuri forces his eyes to open, struggling to focus his terrible eyesight in the steaming air. 

Victor’s looking down at him, dried and dressed in a yukata, ready to pull him out of the onsen. “Time to go to bed,” he says, gentle as he wraps a fluffy white towel around Yuri’s shoulders. “You’ve got a long day tomorrow.”

 

* * *

 

JULY

 

There’s something not quite right after the sixth iteration of the Salchow, when Victor’s knee bends _just_ the wrong way on landing and he falls onto the ice with a solid thump. 

“Yuuko!” Yuri shouts, skating from the boards as quick as he can towards Victor. Before he even finishes getting her name out of his mouth, Yuuko’s already heading for the trainer’s bag by the benches, ponytail whipping in the air. 

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Victor says as he drags himself up into a sitting position, but his face is even whiter than it usually is, and there are deep lines of pain carved around his mouth. Yuri’s seen Victor fall before, on TV and during DVD recordings, once or twice even during practice when his blades aren’t quite sharp enough to properly dig into the ice. 

But this is different. 

“I need _my_ bag,” Victor says and there’s no trace of his usual smile on his face. “I have what I need in there.” 

Yuri nods, once, and turns his head towards the sidelines. “Yuuko,” he says, forcing his voice to be calm. “Can you bring the red and white bag next to mine?” 

Yuuko has the trainer’s bag slung across her shoulders and even from the distance Yuri can make out her steady nod. 

“Are you--?” Yuri hovers unsteadily over Victor’s shoulders, unsure of how much space to give him. Victor’s curled almost protectively over himself, over the bent right knee that he’s prodding at with hands that tremble. 

Right knee. 

“Oh,” Yuri says. “2006 Skate America.” 

Victor’s head jerks up and his green eyes are wide and a little glassy with pain. “You know?” 

How can Yuri not? Victor Nikiforov made his senior debut at 16, placed third at the World Championship at 17, second at 18, silver in the Grand Prix finals at 19 and then… 

“It’s an old, old injury from when I was young,” Victor says, in a low, almost unhappy voice. “When I was competing in Junior’s. I was pushing myself too hard, too quick after I made my debut and it didn’t help that I grew nearly four inches just after I turned 19. My knee was already bothering me when, well.” Victor almost shrugs but he stops mid-motion, his face tightening. “I’m sure there are videos online of what happened.” 

Yuri remembers idly going through Youtube at three in the morning in Detroit, mindlessly clicking on videos of Victor’s old skates. It was the title of the clip that got him more than anything: VICTOR NIKIFOROV 2006 GP SKATE AMERICA FS EPIC FALL!!! It was only a short, tiny little video, maybe a minute long. It was near the end of the free, when Victor was attempting a quad flip, never successfully completed before in international competition. In slow-motion it was easy to see what had gone wrong: a bad takeoff, the pick dragging on the ice for just a moment too long. In slow motion, it was easy to see the agony spread over Victor’s young face, frame by aching frame, as he collapsed onto the ice and did not get up. 

“Here--!” Yuuko skates over, coming to a clean stop by Victor’s side. She’s got the two bags slung over her shoulders, which she hurriedly places on the ground. 

“Knee?” she asks briskly. At Victor’s hesitant nod, she adds, “It’s alright, I’m certified as an athletic trainer too.” 

Victor’s shoulders relax, a touch, and he allows her to carefully fold the fabric of his sweats up, to reveal an ugly red swollen knee. She presses her fingertips, gently against the inflammation, palpating the injury. “Patella’s still in place,” she says. “Just very, very irritated. I can’t say for sure without some advanced imaging, but your tendons and ligaments might just be bruised too. 

Yuuko gives Victor a flat look. “Don’t you have a knee brace for this?” 

Victor gives her a sheepish one back. “It’s in my bag,” he says. “And some steroid creams.” 

Yuri catches Victor’s bag at the last minute, nearly dropping it onto the ground. “Look for his brace,” Yuuko orders, as she digs through her own, fishing out gauze, clingwrap, and an ice pack. He nods hastily and unzips the top; the zipper chain has a little Russian flag on it with Olympic rings on it, courtesy of the Russian National Team. 

The inside’s a mess, a tangle of phone charger cords and water bottles, notes written in chicken scratch English and Cyrillic, a dead tablet in a case patterned with little paw prints, and finally, underneath all the detritus, a thick black knee brace and a small, unobtrusive toiletries bag. 

“Um, here,” Yuri says, tossing the brace over to Yuuko, who catches it neatly with one hand, the other popping the ice pack and shaking it furiously. Neatly, Yuuko slips the brace onto Victor’s knee, securing it into place, before wrapping the ice pack around it with some gauze and clingwrap. 

For once, Victor is utterly quiet, his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. Yuri swallows, looking down at his own, useless hands. Falls are common. Injuries are common. Yuri knows this. Except, looking down at Victor, this feels frighteningly all too sudden and new, because it’s one thing to see skating genius Victor Nikiforov fall on your laptop screen and another to see your coach lying in pain on the ground. 

Slowly, so as not to distract Yuuko, Yuri skates over to Victor’s side, bending down. His knees hit the cold ice. “Hey,” Yuri whispers, like it’s a secret. 

Victor’s eye flickers over to him. 

Yuri reaches out and before he can think too much about it, about what this all _means_ , he places a hand on Victor’s shoulder and squeezes tight. “It’s alright,” he says. “It’ll be alright. I’m here.” 

One of Victor’s fists uncurls and he presses a cold, black gloved hand on top of Yuri’s. They’re standing so close that Yuri can see the individual soft gray lashes of Victor’s eyes, feel his breath ghosting over Yuri’s face. 

“Your lips are chapped,” Victor whispers back. “A flaw that mars your otherwise gorgeous features, Yuri.” 

Yuri can’t help but laugh, the sound bubbling up from the back of his throat because Victor is so absurdly wonderful and if he’s making comments like that, he’ll be alright. “Okay, okay,” Yuri grins, running his tongue over his lower lip. “If you promise me you’ll stay off your knee and wear your brace, then you can buy me some lip balm.” 

Victor smiles for the first time since the fall, and it’s the familiar, sleek curve of his mouth that somehow manages to slip between Yuri’s ribs and head straight for his heart. “I’ll hold you to that.” 

 

* * *

 

 

A phone rings during dinner. Victor and Mari both check their phones at the same time because they haven’t bothered to change it from the default setting. Yuri keeps eating, glumly focusing on the mountain of mackerel and broccoli and brown rice he has to choke down for dinner. 

“Oh, it’s for me,” Victor says, as the light from his phone screen illuminates his cheekbones. “Excuse me,” he says absently, this time in Japanese, and heads for the door. The walls are thin enough that they can all hear bits and pieces of Victor’s conversation float through from the front courtyard, though it’s mostly in Russian. 

“He’s been picking up a lot of words,” Yuri’s Mom says as she scoops out another serving of rice for Mari, topping up Victor’s half-eaten bowl at the same time. “I feel like half our conversations are in Japanese now.” 

“What? Oh,” Yuri blinks. “Really?” Come to think of it, Victor _is_ using more and more Japanese these days, sometimes coming up with convoluted sentences where the grammatical structure seems to be Russian, and the vocabulary is in some mish-mash of English and Japanese and social media speak like memes or hashtags. 

“You know,” Mari says, playing with the filter of a cigarette hanging off the ashtray by her side. “I don’t think we’ve ever heard Victor talk about his family before. And I don’t mean in like a language barrier kind of way.” She slants an unreadable look towards Yuri. “For such a talkative guy, he still seems kind of private.” 

She digs around a pocket for her packet of cigarettes, fishing one out casually, a lighter already in hand. 

“Mari, not while we’re all eating,” Mom says reprovingly and Mari tucks the cigarette away with an air of innocence, even as she subtly slips Dad one underneath the table. 

The door to the room slides open and Victor sticks his silvery head through, grinning impishly. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt dinner.” 

“That’s alright,” Yuri says, shrugging. Victor settles himself back at the table, folding his legs neatly, and stares at the mountain of rice piled up on his bowl. “I was sure I had eaten more than this before I got up,” he mutters to himself, picking up his chopsticks. 

“So, uh.” Yuri tries for casual but mostly ends up choking on a bit of broccoli. “Who was that on the phone? Your uh--” Yuri thinks back to the way Victor said _lover_ so casually before when they first met and quickly changes tack when he feels a flush rising up in his cheeks “--friends from back home?” 

Victor lifts head, long silver bangs falling over his eyes. “Hmm? Oh that? Just some family calling to check up on me,” he says as he excavates a sideways tunnel in his mountain of rice, filling it with little bits of pickles and anchovies. “It’s early morning back in St. Petersburg, and my grandmother keeps forgetting the time difference.” 

Yuri tucks this new bit of information about Victor safely in the back of his head, filing it alongside next to _loves katusdon_ , _ties shoelaces with two bunny ears_ , and _listens obsessively to Europop_ , all the tiny, stupid, useless facts about Victor that Yuri has collected since that snowfall in April, all things that he would have never known from reading interviews or watching clips online. 

“I bet she misses you,” Yuri says, munching halfheartedly on a particularly bony piece of mackerel. “It’s been awhile since you’ve been away from home this long, hasn’t it?” 

The mountain of rice has now gained eyes, nose, and a cunning little head of hair made out of nori. “I trained in Hoboken for a little bit when I was in Juniors,” Victor says, surprisingly deft with his chopsticks as he fiddles with his food sculpture. “Then Denver for six months or so, but I decided to stay in St. Petersburg and with Yakov, my old coach, after debuting. It has been a very long while since I’ve left home, I suppose.” 

Victor looks up and his eyes are suddenly keen. “Why did you spend all those years in Detroit, away from your family?” 

Yuri swallows the last mouthful and reaches out for the glass of water sitting on the table, considering the question. “Because I had to,” he says at last, thinking of the phone call his Mom made right before the Grand Prix finals, her voice faltering: “ _Vicchan...Yuri, I’m so sorry but…_ ” 

“I had to skate.” 

“Well, it seems as if there’s your answer and mine,” Victor says, sounding supremely satisfied. “Look!” He twirls the rice bowl around and Yuri’s startled glance lands on a mini doppelganger of himself smiling back up at him, complete with glasses made out of drops of soy sauce. 

“Mini Yuri Katsuki!” Victor says, delighted, whipping out his phone and snapping a picture of Yuri gaping at Mini Yuri. “Hashtag amazing! Hashtag Japan! Hashtag Yuri & Yuri!”

 

* * *

 

 

AUGUST

 

It’s past sunset now, the dusk setting in and shading the ocean in purples and blues and a green so dark it looks nearly black. The weather’s cooling off as the last few days of the summer pass by, and it’s cold enough that Yuri needs a warmup jacket on top of his t-shirt for his evening runs, the ocean breeze nipping playfully at his hair. He passes over the bridge, through winding parks, his feet carrying him in steady, well-worn circles. He runs the same route he did when he was ten, fifteen, and now, at twenty-three, Yuri finds himself on the same paths of his childhood, dreaming the same dreams. 

He’s on his last loop around the park when he spots a familiar puff of brown fur dart through the bushes. 

Yuri pops one of his earbuds out. “Makkachin!” he calls out, but the dog disappears into the foliage. It’s dark enough now that the streetlights flicker on, one by one, in musical buzzing harmony, as Yuri cuts his run short and heads deeper into the park. 

“Makkachin!” he calls out, worry coiling up in the bottom of his stomach. Did he run away from home? He didn’t look like he had a leash on. “Makka--” 

Illuminated by the glittering near-starlight, clothed in princely shadow and dusk, Victor Nikiforov spins lazily in elegant, perfect loops, Makkachin’s leash trailing from one hand. He’s a vision of grace, of power, of the kind of perfection Yuri first fell in love with when he was ten years old, lonely and awkward and searching for _something_.

Victor laughs, throwing his long, long neck back, joy radiating from deep within. Yuri draws back into the trees, swallowing hard. He can’t-- he would only ruin this-- 

And yet. 

Victor is here, dancing in a park in the middle of Hasetsu, Saga Prefecture, Kyushu, Japan. He sleeps down the hallway from Yuri, hates running, drinks until the late hours of the night and has terrible hangovers. He’s here because of Yuri, _for_ Yuri. 

Yuri doesn’t know what to call this feeling rising up in him, but he knows that he never, ever wants to let it go. 

Yuri pushes himself past the bushes, trampling over a bed of flowers and straight towards Victor’s open arms. “Hey,” he smiles up at Victor’s surprised face, and Victor’s arms automatically pull him closer, the lean corded muscle of his arms pressing against Yuri’s back. 

“It’s cold,” Yuri says, softly. “Let’s go home together.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] toward paradise falling](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9167350) by [Hananobira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hananobira/pseuds/Hananobira)




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